Just a Little Longer
by allon-syandgeronimo
Summary: After everything from Weeping Angels to Daleks to an almost-divorce, Rory Williams has reached the end of his life. Told from the perspective of an eavesdropping security guard, this story tells the final conversation between the Ponds as Rory starts his final adventure.


**A/N: Just a little one-shot I thought of while I was listening to Amy's Theme. I don't know why, but whenever I hear the beginning of that song I always think of it sounding old-fashioned for some reason (I don't really know how to explain it, it's just a feeling I get), which goes with what happened to the Ponds. I guess this would've been a happier fic if I still wasn't sad about Matt, but oh well.**

**Disclaimer: Unfortunately, no.**

_"With my last breath, I'll exhale my love for you. I hope it's a cold day, so you can see what you meant to me."_

_-Jarod Kintz_

**Just a Little Longer**

The security guard took a sip of his coffee as he studied the monitors of the hospital rooms. It was a normal Tuesday morning; the sun was shining, patients were being treated. Nothing of great importance was happening today. Yes, people were dying and getting diagnosed with terminal illnesses, but it was all part of the job.

Over the years, the guard had learned that to work in a hospital, even as a mere security guard, you had to detach yourself from everything and everyone. You couldn't let the deaths and the diseases get to you, or else it would destroy you. Personally, he treated it all like he was watching one of his mother's favorite soap operas: a lot of drama, but at the end of the day that teenager who died of cancer is just another name on the credits.

Today, however, was different. It wasn't just a normal Tuesday. Something big was happening, you could feel it as soon as you walked into the hospital. Today a dark cloud was hanging over the hospital, and even the lowly security guard knew why.

Rory Williams was dying. It wasn't anything abnormal, in fact he was healthier than most men his age. He didn't smoke, he didn't drink a lot, and he was in better shape than half the staff. No, after more than 50 years of fighting Death itself, it was old age that was going to take old Dr. Williams in the end.

The security guard had only been working here for about a year, but he still knew who Dr. Williams was. Everyone did. Even though he had retired around ten years ago, he was still a prominent figure around the hospital as he often stopped in to help out when they were understaffed.

He had only spoken to the guard once, just a simple "Good morning, Alonso!" before walking into the elevator. Alonso had no idea how Dr. Williams had known his name, but he seemed to know everyone's name, so he didn't give it much thought.

Now he watched as the old doctor lay in his bed, looking smaller than he did just last week, with his wife at his side. Amy, Alonso thought she was called, was holding his hand as she laughed at some joke he had just told her. Apparently she had been a ginger when she was younger, but that had all faded to a grayish-white.

Not thinking twice about the Williams' privacy, Alonso turned up the volume on his monitor so he could hear what they were saying. He swallowed his last gulp of coffee and proceeded to open a Kit Kat from his desk as he watched them with tired beady eyes.

_"…Amy, when I go…" Rory coughed. Amy smacked him lightly on the shoulder, furrowing her brow when he winced._

_ "You're not going to die on me, Rory Williams. Not today," she said softly as she squeezed his hand. "Not after everything."_

_ "Amy, I'm 82. The headstone said 82—"_

_ "I don't care what the bloody headstone said!" She interrupted. "Time can be rewritten."_

_ "Not this time. Even we can't stop death," Rory retorted, smiling a little as he said, "What was it the Doctor used to say? Something like, 'Everything's got to end sometime, otherwise nothing would ever get started.'"_

Alonso scratched the back of his neck and looked at the couple's grainy image, clearly confused. What headstone? Why was 82 such an important number? How could time ever be written, and why couldn't it be this time? It sounded like something out of a sci-fi show or a video game, not something to be discussed by people as old as his grandparents. And, more importantly:

"Doctor who?"

_"What's there to get started, though? My life without you? Because I don't want it, Rory. I don't want it," Amy said clearly, sounding as though she was about to cry._

_ "You can't just argue yourself out of me…dying, Amy. It's the one argument you can't win," Rory laughed weakly._

_ "Shut up, Stupid Face."_

_ He shook his head and rolled his eyes. "I love you."_

_ She leaned in and kissed him, a smile still on his face. "I love you more."_

_ "If you see River," Rory paused as he gathered the energy to speak again. "Or even somehow the Doctor, tell them I say hello, will you?"_

_ Amy was openly crying now, but smiling at her husband through her tears. "Of course."_

_ "Amy?"_

_ "Yeah?"_

_ "Can I admit something to you?"_

_ She ran a hand through his thinning hair. "What kind of question is that?"_

_ "I'm kind of scared. Of dying, I mean."_

_ Her face softened. "It's not like you haven't died before."_

_ "I'm not coming back this time, though. We've known since the angels zapped us that this was it. And I'm scared."_

_ "Rory…it's—it's just like falling asleep, right? And I guess that's part of the adventure, isn't it?"_

_ "My last adventure," Rory muttered. "Pity it wasn't in the TARDIS."_

_ "And pity it won't be with me."_

_ "I'll wait for you. You know I will."_

_ She laughed quietly through her tears, which were coming faster and harder as she watched her husband's life leak out of him right before her eyes. "The Lone Centurion waited two thousand years for me once, I guess he'll have to wait a little longer."_

_ "For you, I'd do anything," he said, echoing his words from what seemed like centuries ago, but was actually years from now._

_ His eyes started to slip closed as he took a deep labored breath that rattled in his chest. "Amy Pond, I—"_

_ Amy waited for the end of the sentence, but it never came. The last drop of life had trickled out of Rory Williams at last, gone to wherever she was going to go five years down the road. _

Alonso found that he couldn't watch the screen anymore after he'd watched the old man die. He had no idea what anything in his last conversation with his wife meant, but he supposed he didn't really care either. He had hardly known the couple, after all. She was a writer with a Scottish accent and he was a typical doctor from some obscure town in Britain, nothing more and nothing less.

His interest in the Williams' now gone, Alonso pulled himself from his chair with some difficulty and sauntered his way across the hall to the restroom, thoughts of Doctors and TARDISis and Centurions flying from his head completely, as though they were never there in the first place.

_ "I didn't really think about it years ago, or I guess years from now, if it would be worth it to leave everyone and everything I know behind when I blinked. I didn't have to. It was always you, Rory, always. Over the Doctor, over everything. I never really told you, but I hope you knew," Amy said, trying to convince herself that Rory wasn't gone. "Wait for me, will you? Wherever you are…just wait for me."_


End file.
